OC in county forest without hunting license

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Anyone ever run into a game warden well OCing on countie forest land outside of hunting season or without a hunting license? Just wondering if a person could get charged with illegal hunting with the only evidance being the gun. The reason I ask is I spend a lot of time in the blue hills and there is all sorts of illegal activity that happens out their that makes a person want to have a gun handy. Things like pot gardens, drug deals, poachers, and every few years a bodie is found.Many of the times that I am out there I am hunting so I am not so consirned then but in the spring and summer I am usually up there trail riding, camping, fishing, or berrie pickaing and am not armed. Mostly because I don't want to have to deal with an over zellous game warden accusing me of poatching just because I have a loaded gun. So does anyone know of any cases whare someone was charged of poaching with the only evidance being they had a loaded gun. You know what they say, Game wardens have more power than God in Wisconsin.

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There is a chance you may be charged, Just due to the fact that some of WI's wardens are idiots. But you are acting legally So I would not worry about it too much.
There are very good reasons to be armed in the forests of WI.

The DNR is an odd bunch, I would wager that an ignorant DNR warden will charge you wrongfully. I state this from my dealings and witnessing other peoples dealings with a select few wardens up this way.

One DNR clown was ticketing snowmobilers for having an "Afternarket Exhaust System" on their snowmobile. Yet there is no lawagainst having a non-stock exhaust, Only that noise levels cannot be exceeded.
Some of the people that got ticketedhad the factory equipped exhaust system on their sled, but took the time to have it ceramic coated, or polished. So it did not look like astock cheap exhaust system. But got ticketed anyways. Those that went to court won their cases. Others found it to be less expensive by just paying the fine instead of driving back up here, and staying at a hotel to make the court date.

Just be prepared to have a court date to clear your name if you are wrongfully ticketed.

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For a long time I carried a small game license just in case. I spent a considerable amount of time wandering around an area that is a public hunting ground and never without a firearm.

There is ALWAYS something in season-- skunk, opossum, weasels, and in the southern half of the state, coyote.

But on the other hand, make sure your firearm is legal for hunting-- not some 2 inch snubbie.

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The DNR should have no authority to enforcefirearm laws or regulations except on public land during hunting season.

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Shotgun wrote:

For a long time I carried a small game license just in case. I spent a considerable amount of time wandering around an area that is a public hunting ground and never without a firearm.

There is ALWAYS something in season-- skunk, opossum, weasels, and in the southern half of the state, coyote.

But on the other hand, make sure your firearm is legal for hunting-- not some 2 inch snubbie.

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You can legally hunt coyote with a 2" snubbie.. The only time you can not hunt coyote 24 hours a day north of Hwy 64 is during the gun deer hunt.

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Did not find Coyote, but it did tell me to look at the deer regs...

For deer;


[align=left]Handguns:[/align]

[align=left]• To be legal for deer, handguns must use center-fire cartridges of .22 caliber or[/align]

[align=left]larger and have a 5½ inch minimum barrel, measured from the firing pin to the[/align]

[align=left]muzzle with the action closed.[/align]

[align=left]• You may not possess a concealed handgun.[/align]

[align=left]• Muzzleloading handguns, see “Muzzleloaders,” above.[/align]

• It is illegal to hunt with a handgun if under age 18.


So looks like the 1911 is out? Good thing for the .44 mag (7.5").

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AaronS wrote:

Did not find Coyote, but it did tell me to look at the deer regs...

Click to expand...

Only Deer and Bear require a 5 1/2" barrel and a centerfire cartridge for handgun hunting.

Coyote is a small game and can legally be hunted with a pellet gun...

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Small game hunting requires at least 4-inch barrel as measured from muzzle to firing pin. So, with a revolver the length of the chamber is included. That 2-inch snub probably isn't going to make it unless you have an unusual caliber, e.g., 45-70, or maybe one of those .45 colt/.410 rigs.

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Shotgun wrote:

Small game hunting requires at least 4-inch barrel as measured from muzzle to firing pin. So, with a revolver the length of the chamber is included. That 2-inch snub probably isn't going to make it unless you have an unusual caliber, e.g., 45-70, or maybe one of those .45 colt/.410 rigs.

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My .357 revolver is well over 4" to the firing pin and the barrel is not much more than 2" long. A .44 or other larger caliber is easily large enough. In WI with a revolver you have the actual barrel length including a compensator (any barrel attachment) even if it is temporary, you have the cylinder length and you have the front and rear cylinder gap. All of these add up to make the "barrel length" for hunting purposes.

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My SP 101 with a 2-1/4 inch barrel comes in just below the legal length. By about an 1/8 of an inch if I recall.

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I know the local Warden, even went on a ride along and he's a good guy. HELL NO he is not going to bother me, NOR WOULD I LET HIM! Nor any other warden, don't worry about it carry as you please in the forests. I go jogging with a firearm in southern kettlemoraine, I'll be dammed if some prick is going to pull "you must be poaching you have a gun".



They were or might have the olympic games in chicago at one point and were actually looking to use Southern KettleMoraine for teh olympics. Would I have not carried if there was an olympic event going on in the same woods? Hell no I would still carry.





Don't worry about it!


Ben

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Hillmann wrote:

Anyone ever run into a game warden well OCing on countie forest land outside of hunting season or without a hunting license? Just wondering if a person could get charged with illegal hunting with the only evidance being the gun.

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What is the Wisconsin statute or regulation that might provide the basis for the arrest? This must be identified first before analyzing anything else.

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on the dnr web site the deffinition of hunting includes intention of taking an animal which is impossoble to prove eather way. Basicly if the warden thinks you are doing something illegal he can ticket or arrest you for it baised on what he thinks your intentions are. Based on someone elses observations of you, what is the diffrencebetweengoing for a hike in the woods and sitting on a stump to enjoy your surrondings with a gun for protection, or hiking into the woods and sitting on a stump with the intention of shooting the first animal you see. Either way you are sitting quitly in the woods with a gun whell watching for wildlife. Depending on the game warden they may understand the need for a defensive weapon or if he is an *** he can ticket you for poaching. Eather way it is quite a risk, found guilty of poaching would cost thousands, your gun, truck, and five years hunting and fishing. But not having a gun could be much more costley if you stumble into something that others didn't want you to see. I think I am leaning more towards carrying if I plan to get more than a mile from the roadand take my chances with the warden rather than the drug growers out there.

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To be fined for "poaching", would you not have to have an animal carcass in your posession?

I would find it highly doubtful ANY jury would find you guilty of "poaching" without having any proff that you actually poached something.

No different that a street cop areesting you for armed robbery based solely on the fact that you were OC'ing.

No crime was committed in either case. Possibility exists in both cases, probability exists in niether.

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Mike wrote:

Hillmann wrote:

Anyone ever run into a game warden well OCing on countie forest land outside of hunting season or without a hunting license? Just wondering if a person could get charged with illegal hunting with the only evidance being the gun.

Click to expand...

What is the Wisconsin statute or regulation that might provide the basis for the arrest? This must be identified first before analyzing anything else.

Click to expand...

See thats the thing,
Many wardens automatically suspect you are shooting game without proper licenses and out of season if you are armed. They alsodo poaching sting-operations up here with deer & bird decoys with small cameras in them, and record people from a blind situated nearby, They commonly catch people shooting from their vehicles at game animals along roadways or logging roads. The DNR has authority to enter private property for any reason across the entire state. People have been cited for snowmobile operation on their own land in many cases and also have gotten hunting violations on their own land too.

The only place it specifically states a person cannot be armed is the 24 hour period before the start of gun-deer season. otherwise it is legal to be armed, just not shooting unless you're in a specified target range.

That is why I stated "Be prepared to be have a court date to clear your name"

Although there are no specificlaws prohibiting being armed, the DNR treats everyone as if they are guilty and gets quite excessive with citing people not breaking any laws, some wardens make up laws as they go and you are thenrequired to clear your name in court, and most judges treat DNR wardens like infallible gods and see you as guilty before you even show for court.

here is a link to the WIDNR website http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/regs/index.htm

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I am willing to bet that carrying a holstered handgun would arouse less suspicion than a rifle or shotgun. It is also more comfortable to hike with a handgun.

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http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9&ArticleID=8907

[font="TIMES, SERIF"]Friday, January 09, 2009[/font]


[font="TIMES, SERIF"]First of a two-part series



The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a simple, blunt message for hunters in Wisconsin: When a DNR warden asks you to give up your legal firearm, do so, plain and simple, no matter what.

What's more, that goes for all citizens, the agency has asserted. Citizens with firearms, the DNR argues, should always do exactly what law enforcement officers tell them to do, regardless of the circumstances of the situation.

To which one former hunter education instructor for the department has an equally simple and blunt response: The agency's directive is unconstitutional, plain and simple, and citizens don't have to hand over their firearms without any probable cause.

That viewpoint is the reason Mark Palan, the owner of Palan's Outpost Sporting Goods in Iowa County, has the word 'former' attached to his title. After 14 years as a volunteer instructor, the DNR cast him out last year for, in the agency's words, misrepresenting agency standards to hunter education students.

The issue promises to affect many more people than hunters in the coming year. In fact, the DNR's foray into gun rights issues on the Palan matter represents just one cloud in a growing storm over what authority law enforcement officers actually have to seize openly carried but legal firearms, whether it's from a hunter in the field or a citizen on the street.

Wisconsin is ostensibly an open-carry state; the media debate thus far has focused on whether to extend so-called carrying rights to concealed weapons.

But the latter could soon be yesterday's news; the DNR's excommunication of Palan, and its subsequent articulation of a broad grant of power for law enforcement to confiscate legal firearms, has suddenly called the legitimacy and reality of open carry itself into question.

Just as important, along with an ongoing non-DNR case in West Allis, the agency's expression of support for the ability of police to take away legal firearms upon simple command has in effect opened the door for a de facto state policy for all law enforcement.

The question is, is it constitutional, or, as Palan contends, does the DNR's position characterize an unconstitutional breach of a citizen's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure?

Simply asked, can law enforcement take a person's legally carried firearm without any probable cause that a crime is being committed? Must a hunter in the field surrender his firearm just because a conservation warden tells him to?



Palan's encounter

To Palan, the answer is no.

"For 14 years, I've been teaching my students the same thing, over and over and over," Palan told The Lakeland Times.

The first thing he teaches is, he said, when a person is on private property and a warden stops and asks to see a license, the first thing to do is ask the warden for his credentials. The second thing, Palan said, is to boot the warden off the property because he's trespassing.

"And when they start throwing their weight around, you just reach in your pocket and dial 911 and have the police come out and have them removed," he said.

Being approached by a warden on public land is different, Palan said.

"If you are on public ground and a warden stops you and wants to see your license, you should ask him for his credentials, then you show him your license," he said. "And when he says, give me your gun, you show him your gun. You set it down on the ground or you can hand it to him. But your right is that you do not have to give him your gun. And if you set it down on the ground and he picks it up, now he's taken your gun without your permission. I've been teaching that for 14 years."

But, Palan said, his instruction collided with DNR attitudes last March when a local conservation warden lectured at one of his classes and discovered what Palan was teaching.

A confrontation ensued, Palan recalls, both in the class that night and a few days later in his store, and Palan says the DNR gave him a choice - either admit to the class that what he had been teaching was wrong, or get kicked out.

Palan got kicked out.



For the record

DNR documents corroborate Palan's version of events.

In an April 28, 2008, letter, DNR hunter education administrator Timothy Lawhern told Palan he was being ousted as a DNR instructor for a variety of reasons, including Palan's alleged refusal to abide by a program instructor code of conduct, his refusal to accept constructive criticism from local conservation warden Joe Frost, and his refusal to teach the program as the DNR wanted.

The removal applied to all recreational safety programs, Lawhern stated, boater education as well as snowmobile education, ATV education as well as hunter education and bow hunter education.

"You have trained many hunter education graduates contrary to our program standards of how to handle a firearm when approached by a law enforcement officer," Lawhern wrote. "This training has now placed those students in a potentially dangerous attitude which could have catastrophic results for themselves and members of the law enforcement community."

Palan certainly had the right to disagree with the DNR's approach, Law- hern added, but that did not give him any authority to teach one of their programs contrary to the agency's guidelines.

"You may disagree with our required training as you have every right to do so," Lawhern wrote. "However, you have no authority to teach our program contrary to our guidelines."

Lawhern followed his April 28 letter to Palan with a May 19, 2008, missive to Palan's former students. That letter instructed them to always follow the commands of a law enforcement officer, no matter the circumstance and even if it meant giving the officer the firearm.

"It has come to our attention that a portion of the training you received while taking the Department of Natural Resources Hunter Education Course in Iowa County was not in compliance with our program policies," Lawhern began. ". . . . The portion of the training I need to clarify for you is what is expected of citizens when they are contacted by a law enforcement officer."

Lawhern didn't name Palan but said the "instructor" had misrepresented the DNR's program training standards regarding such contacts.

"What you should have been taught was to maintain good muzzle control and then follow the instructions of the law enforcement officer," Lawhern wrote. "This will vary depending on what type of contact it is, where it is taking place, the circumstances behind the contact, the officer's intuition or concern about safety and your demeanor during the contact."

What the DNR teaches in its hunter education program must carry over to everyday real-life situations, Lawhern continued.

"That is why it is important to understand that law enforcement communities, regardless of their branch of service (i.e. state trooper, county deputy, municipal police, conservation warden, etc.), have expectations that their instructions will be followed," he wrote. "This is for your safety, the safety of the officer as well as any other citizens that might be nearby."

For the most part, Lawhern wrote, wardens were simply checking for legal firearms for the game being pursued, magazine capacity (waterfowl hunting), and legal ammunition types - all the while maintaining a safe environment.

Examples of instructions a person might receive during a hunting situation might include the following, Lawhern stated: "Please open the action of your firearm"; "Would you mind safely unloading your firearm"; "You may place your firearm safely against that tree until we are finished"; "I'll hold your firearm while you check for your license"; "Allow me to check your magazine for a plug while you find your license."

Listening to law enforcement, no matter what, was the proper course of action, he wrote.

"Your cooperation with law enforcement is vital no matter what the situation is," Lawhern concluded. "To act any other way could result in a tragedy easily avoided by simply following their instructions."

The letter stunned Palan.

"They took the time and the taxpayer dollars to send a letter to every student that I've taught in 14 years, telling them that they were misrepresented by an Iowa county instructor," he said.

But the former instructor said he was more interested in what the letter did not say.

"Now what is expected of citizens?" he asked. "It doesn't say here that the law says that you will hand over your firearm."



To the next level

Even after removing Palan as an instructor, Lawhern wasn't content to leave the issue alone. He also addressed it in the April 2008 issue of the Wisconsin Hunter Education newsletter, which is distributed to hunter education instructors.

In the article, entitled "When a Warden Approaches, What Do I Do with my Gun," he expanded the scope of authority to include all law enforcement and all citizens. In so doing, he put the DNR on a collision course with the state's open-carry law.

"About 8 years ago the International Hunter Education Association raised the question about what is being taught in hunter education courses relative to how hunters should handle their firearms during license checks in the field," Lawhern wrote. "The aftermath of the debate was that a survey should be done within the law enforcement community to determine what they expected as appropriate behavior. The debate caused us to ask all manner of law enforcement since what we teach we wanted to meet every cop, state trooper, county deputy or municipal officer's expectations."

Law enforcement wanted just two things, he said of the survey's results. One was to maintain good muzzle control. The other was to "do exactly what the officer tells you to do."

"This may seem a bit odd as it's a standard that could be different from one officer to the next or different when situations are different," Lawhern wrote. "The officers instructions can and will vary depending on the situation."

Lawhern them moved on to address the likely response of law enforcement in general when officers see someone openly carrying a firearm, which, again, is not illegal per se in Wisconsin.

"Note that the officer on the street doesn't expect to see firearms openly exposed," he wrote. "In most cases when they do see a firearm, they draw theirs and tell the person 'Let me see your hands! Don't move!' In some cases they yell, 'Put the gun down,' or "Drop the gun!'"

Similarly, he stated, there would be times when a warden would ask a hunter to put down a gun or unload it or hand it to the warden.

"The point is, we must be teaching our students to follow the officer's instructions," he concluded.

To Lawhern, then, the mere presence of a firearm was reason enough for the police to give commands that must be obeyed, in addition to launching preliminary use-of-deadly force tactics such as drawing weapons.

Mystified at that reasoning, Palan sought out a legislative viewpoint, asking his state senator, Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), whether a DNR warden in fact possessed any authority to take custody of a legal firearm, absent any probable cause.

Schultz retrieved an opinion from a senior staff attorney for the Wisconsin Legislative Council. The answer was vague, at best. Still, the attorney, Mark Patronsky, could find no blanket authority, except that arising from certain specifically defined statutory reasons.

"Within the scope of the constitutional prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, the courts have carved out authorization for law enforcement officers (such as conservation wardens) to take control of a firearm to protect the safety of the law enforcement officer," Patronsky wrote. "The officer, after further investigation and determination of a probable cause, may proceed to arrest the individual and seize the firearm."

Other situations in which a firearm might be seized included violations of various ammunitions and transporting regulations or the creation of a public nuisance.

The bottom line was, though, police needed some reason for the seizure.

"The statutes and administrative rules described in this memorandum, as well as a variety of other statutes and rules, do allow a warden to take a person's firearm for various reasons," he wrote.

Palan says that means a warden simply can't take a firearm without some probable cause.

"Nowhere in the hunters' education manual, nowhere in the instructors manual, nowhere in any state statutes that I can find, does it say you must hand over your firearm," he said. "Nowhere."



Real-life impact

One practical effect of Lawhern's expansive grant of confiscatory powers to police, not to mention their supposed prerogative to draw their weapons on gun-carrying citizens, would be a practical evisceration of Wisconsin's open carry status.

That status is already murky.

On the one hand, despite Lawhern's drawn-gun scenario, the heads of multiple Wisconsin law enforcement agencies told The Lakeland Times their officers would not act in the manner Lawhern described upon merely seeing someone with a gun. They acknowledged the legality of open carry.

In addition, the Use of Deadly Force policy of the Oneida County Sheriff's Department would seem to prohibit such conduct, without some other probable cause or suspicion.

"In any use of force decision, the officer must be certain that he or she has the right to make contact," the policy states. "The intervention must have legal beginning based upon articulable facts or circumstances. Officer presence can be based upon invitation, reasonable suspicion, community caretaker function, probable cause, exigent circumstances or other 'legal beginnings.'"

According to the policy, officer presence - which presumably could include a drawn gun - is the lowest level of use of force, but, the policy emphasizes, "an excessive or negative presence must be avoided or, if used, must be justified."

How could Lawhern's scenario be reconciled with such a policy? That could only logically occur if open-carry was by itself illegal, by definition constituting reasonable suspicion, probable cause, exigent circumstance or some other "legal beginning" that justified police contact and presence.

Then, too, both the state, under then attorney general Jim Doyle, and the Supreme Court recognized open-carry rights in State of Wisconsin v Hamdan, in which the High Court carved out a concealed weapon exemption for small storeowners.

The Department of Justice argued against the exemption, citing the ability of citizens to already possess and carry an open weapon: "The State argues that even under the strictest enforcement of the [concealed carry] statute, a person lawfully in possession of a firearm will always retain the ability to keep the firearm in the open - holding the weapon in the open, keeping the weapon in a visible holster, displaying the weapon on the wall, or otherwise placing the weapon in plain view," the court stated in summing up the DOJ's brief.

In her dissent of the final decision, chief justice Shirley Abrahamson went even further.

"That is, [the law] does not prevent anyone from carrying a firearm for security, defense, hunting, recreation, or other lawful purposes," Abrahamson wrote. "Rather, it limits the manner of carrying weapons, by requiring that a weapon that is on a person or within a person's reach not be concealed. The gist of the offense is the concealment."



Then again

On the other hand, police have increasingly begun to cite those openly carrying firearms for disorderly conduct, which a September 2000 memorandum by the Legislative Reference Bureau warned could happen.

"Wisconsin law does not specifically prohibit the open carrying of loaded or unloaded firearms in public, but a person doing so may risk being arrested, and charged with disorderly conduct, on the grounds that the display threatens the public peace or safety," the brief stated.

If that's the case, then police departments and the DNR could effectively make open carry illegal by defining it as disorderly conduct from the get-go, making an end run around both the Supreme Court and the Legislature. Using the same logic, any law enforcement commands not obeyed could result in a disorderly conduct citation.

Until recently, those charged with disorderly conduct for carrying open firearms have not fought the issue. That changed last year.

In West Allis, in August, in a scenario eerily similar to the one Lawhern outlined, West Allis police drew their weapons and arrested Bruce Krause, who was wearing a holstered legal pistol while planting trees on his own property.

In a case that could finally clarify both police authority to seize firearms and the state's open carry law, Krause is fighting back, and a landmark U.S. Court of Appeals decision last month could be decisive in the outcome.

Those cases will be discussed in the next article.



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I can't see why the DNR would have any more reason to suspect one is hunting illegally simply because one is armed, than they would to suspect that a person is robbing an establishment because they walk past it while armed. Can anyone point to an actual example where one was charged or convicted of illegal hunting without there being something else to corroborate the charge, e.g., an animal carcass?

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Stoney-Point wrote:

To be fined for "poaching", would you not have to have an animal carcass in your posession?

Click to expand...

No they just need to think that you have the intention of poaching at least that is how it is written in the deer hunting pamplet under the deffinition of hunting

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I already posted this but I don't know whare it went so I am posting it agen.

I also muzzleload hunt in the Blue Hills am I allowed to have a sidearm for defince? Or am I just restricted to one shot and after that I am incapable of definding myself?

Same thing gose for bow hunting am I allowed to cary a gun for defence?

What about hunting upland game ore waterfoul? It is illegal to have slugs or larger than BB shot in your posession. I can't imagen that #7 bird shot would be much good in a defince situation. Am I allowed a gun for defence or would that also be restricted to what is legal for hunting?

I plan to bear hunt with a muzzleloader next year am I allowed a pistol that may not be legal to hunt with(small calaber or shor barrel) for defence? If not what if my only shot dosen't kill, then what run or pray are my only options.

All of these are real situations whare a person may be left defencliss agenst anamals and criminals just to make it easier for game warden to do there job.